OAN Staff James Meyers
11:49 AM – Wednesday, September 4, 2024
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un has announced that up to 30 officials are set to be executed over their alleged failure to prevent enormous flooding and landslides in the summer that resulted in the deaths of close to 4,000 people.
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According to one of Kim’s officials, between 20 and 30 leaders in North Korea had been charged with corruption and dereliction of duty, with the state sentencing them to capital punishment, TV Chosun reported.
“It has been determined that 20 to 30 cadres in the flood-stricken area were executed at the same time late last month,” the official told the outlet.
However, reports of the calls for executions by North Korea’s leader have not been immediately verified by other independent outlets.
This comes after the North Korean Central News Agency previously reported that Kim ordered authorities to “strictly punish” the officials after life threatening flooding hit Chagang province in July, leaving almost 4,000 dead and displacing over 15,000 people.
The government officials who were executed were not identified, but the report cited that Kang Bong-hoon, the Chagang province provincial party committee secretary since 2019, was among the leaders dismissed by Kim in an emergency meeting during the flooding disaster.
After the meeting with Kim, former North Korean diplomat Lee II-gyu said to TV Chosun that it was clear that officials in the meeting were “so anxious that they don’t know when their necks will fall off.”
Kim was seen last month surveying the damaged areas and meeting with residents as he estimated that it would take months to rebuild the flooded neighborhoods.
This is not the first time reports have come to the forefront of Kim ordering officials to be killed after a major failure.
In 2019, North Korea allegedly executed Kim Hyok Chol, the country’s nuclear envoy to the U.S., for failing to negotiate a summit between Kim and then-President Donald Trump.
However, CNN reported that Chol was in state custody.
Meanwhile, North Korea is known for having a high rate of public executions, according to the Korea Times, with the state carrying out an average of 10 public executions before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Korea Times now estimates that the rate has increased more, with at least 100 executions taking place in 2023.
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